Political vendetta behind FIR against me: Anurag

Terming the FIR against him and his brother Arun Singh by the vigilance bureau as “hollow”, BJP Yuva Morcha chief Anurag Thakur said the case was slapped due to “political vendetta”.

He said this while addressing a press conference here on Thursday.

“Earlier also three such FIRs were registered against us, but nothing wrong could be proved in the court of law and now again an FIR has been registered due to political vendetta by the Congress government in Himachal Pradesh,” Anurag told the Hindustan Times.

“Since the Congress has failed to win the Hamirpur Lok Sabha seat, that is why now they are playing politics,” he added.

“It is completely a false case and people will show them the consequences of it in the coming Lok Sabha elections,” he added, claiming that whatever the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association (HPCA) has done is legal and the issue was discussed in the meeting of the trust of the cricket stadium threadbare.

On being asked how he would justify purchase of land by the HPCA from Below Poverty Line (BPL) families, which could not be sold at least for 20 years as per the norms, Anurag evaded a direct reply and maintained “nothing is illegal in purchase deal”.

On a query about the allegations against him for converting the HPCA into a company, which was initially registered as a society with Registrar of Societies in Himachal, the Hamirpur MP said, “As society, the HPCA could not deliver much results and after converting it into the company, five cricket stadiums, including international stadium in Dharamsala, were constructed in the hill state.”

On getting the benefits such as allotment of land at throwaway prices to the society, which was later on passed to private company HPCA, Thakur said everything was done under legal consultation on the pattern of conversion of such cricket societies into companies in several other states such as Delhi.

“You are talking about what benefits. It was just a piece of mountain, which has been given the shape of a beautiful stadium,” he quipped.

“We had even taken permission from the BCCI for converting the society into the company before getting it registered under company law in Kanpur,” he added.